


Double Double

by joshiferdallas



Series: Hocus Pocus [1]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, F/F, Family, Fluff, Henry is a twin, Hurt/Comfort, Reboot, Robin who?, Slow Burn, captain swan doesn't exist here
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-23
Updated: 2017-06-28
Packaged: 2018-11-04 02:14:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 12,859
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10981245
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/joshiferdallas/pseuds/joshiferdallas
Summary: There is a town in Maine, where every storybook character you've ever known is trapped between two worlds. Only the prophesied Saviour can break the Evil Queen's curse with the help of her twin sons and a little bit of magic.OUAT SwanQueen reboot. Rating subject to change.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I've been toying with the idea of how differently OUAT might have happened if Henry and been a twin for such a long time now, and as most of swen does, I imagined how differently the show would have turned out had Adam and Eddy not been afraid to make swan queen happen too. So, here we are now that I have merged those two ideas into one.
> 
> This story is going to take us all back to the beginning and I hope you all intend to stick around for the ride.
> 
> In loving memory of fellow Oncer, Georgina Callander, who was tragically taken from the world in a vile act of terrorism today.

Ten year old James Alexander Swan, or _Jamie_ as his mother liked to call him, was standing on tip-toes atop of a very expensive end table when the doorbell rang through the apartment. He wobbled for a second on the piece of oak furniture before regaining his balance to tack the last corner of the banner to the ceiling. Once the push-pin was in place, he jumped down with a hollow thump and raced across the open planned floor to reach the front door. He slid across the laminate wooden flooring in his socks and made quick work of the multiple locks and deadbolts that kept him hidden from the outside world.

"Jump to the first. Stretch to the second. And… pull back the third." He whispered to himself as he followed his usual routine.

As quickly and efficiently as any ten year old could, Jamie pulled open the yellow front door and bellowed: " _Happy birthday!_ " His eyes were clenched shut and his arms were open wide, expecting his mother's strong arms to wrap around his waist and lift him up to her height for an endless stream of kisses that he knew would soon come. When he wasn't instantly tackled into a suffocating hug, the ten year old swallowed thickly in anticipation and cracked his eyelids open slightly. When his eyes fell on the sight in front of him, his brow furrowed.

" _Woah_ …" He whispered as his eyes widened.

The kid standing in the hallway stared blankly at Jamie until his eyes grew comically to match Jamie's astounded stare. The pair stared at each other for what felt like hours, each taking mental notes and images of every detail of the other boy. Jamie noticed their countless similarities and quirks that Jamie thought were exclusively his own; their nervous stances, wild and messy hair that would take far too long to tame, freckled skin, and teeth that were almost too big for their little heads. Had Jamie not been rocking a pair of Ghostbusters pyjamas and bright yellow Adventure Time socks, he would have sworn he was looking in a mirror.

Jamie stumbled back slightly when the boy in the corridor finally composed himself and offered his hand out to shake. "Hi. I'm Henry."

With a timid touch and the briefest shake possible, Jamie smiled awkwardly, still trying to comprehend the sight in front of him. "I'm Jamie."

"Cool." Henry grinned at him as shuffled the heavy looking backpack on his shoulders. He readjusted the straps and loosened the red and black scarf around his neck as he glanced into the apartment over Jamie's shoulder. "Do you know if Emma Swan lives around here?"

"Yeah, she's my mom. But she's out."

"Do you know when she's gonna be back?" Henry tugged on the straps of his backpack again and kicked at the doorframe, looking like he was trying everything not to look at the boy who lived here.

"Around seven-thirty." Jamie hesitated for a moment in the doorway before his charming and chivalrous antics took over. He stepped aside and held the door open. "Wanna come in and wait for her?"

Henry nodded and lugged himself, and his heavy backpack, into the third floor apartment, eager to look around at the set up Jamie and Emma Swan had going. He let out a sigh of relief when he saw the crooked birthday banners and celebration balloons throughout the apartment – at least something from his extensive research on this _Emma Swan_ was correct. Today was her twenty-eighth birthday. Henry was convinced when he stepped on the bus to Boston that he knew everything he needed to know about the woman – what colour hair she had, what colour eyes she had, how old she was, and even how old she was when she gave him up. But the ten-year-old still struggled to piece together the situation before him; another ten-year-old boy that looked exactly like him, a big empty apartment with no art projects or photos hanging on any of the walls, and boxes everywhere. Aside from the birthday decorations, the only thing that could convince anyone that people were actually living in the apartment were the sneakers stacked by the door, an array of comic books scattered on the table and a skateboard propped against the wall.

"So, where _is_ Emma?" Henry wondered aloud as he finally allowed his backpack to drop from his shoulders to his feet with a heavy thud. He had been carrying it for hours. His little arms ached and his back throbbed from the weight of carrying the thing up the three flights of stairs to reach apartment C-28.

"Catching a perp." Jamie said casually as he pulled out a small box from behind one of the couches. It was wrapped scruffily in birthday paper with a huge store bought bow stuck to the top of it. He slid it onto the kitchen's breakfast bar and noticed Henry's confused watch. "She catches bad guys. So she's out for dinner with one before she kicks his butt."

Henry tilted his head. "If she _catches_ the bad guys, why is she at dinner with one?"

"The element of surprise." He recited with a smirk. He had asked the very same question not so long ago, and his mother's response had made him laugh far more than it should have. In Jamie's eyes, his Ma was a superhero. She was Boston's secret superhero, catching the bad guys and saving the damsels in distress all in a day's work. "Are you here to see my Ma about another bad guy that she has to catch?"

"I'm not sure yet." The well-dressed ten-year-old shrugged and pulled open his heavy back pack to take out one of the biggest books Jamie had ever seen. It was made from a deep brown leather, like one of his mother's favourite jackets, and the words embossed in gold on the front read ' _Once Upon a Time_ '. With a heavy slam, Henry dropped the hardback book onto the granite breakfast bar. "Emma is in this book, and we need her help."

Jamie screwed up his face as he looked at the book. His mother _might_ be a superhero in Boston, but there was no way she could be a superhero in a fairy-tale book! Only he was supposed to know that she was a real life superhero. In speculation, Jamie reached out to turn the front cover of the book, only for his hand to be slapped away by Henry with a warning look. Jamie tore his hand away from the other boy and held it to his chest, feigning injury.

"Ow! What was that for?!"

"You have to wait," Henry told him, sounding much older than his years. "Before you look at the book, you have to promise me that you won't tell Emma until the time is right."

Jamie nodded enthusiastically. "I promise."

"Okay. Good. But there's something I have to tell you too."

"What…? Am I in there too?" Jamie narrowed his eyes at Henry, then at the book, trying his damn near hardest not to pull it out of Henry's hands and flick through the pages until he found his mom.

"No. Your mom… _Emma_ ," Henry hesitated as he rubbed the back of his neck and blushed. He averted his eyes from Jamie and focused solely on the elegant script stamped on the front of his book. Telling Emma was going to be hard enough, but telling her kid that they might be brothers… well, Henry wasn't sure it was going to be as simple as ripping off a Band-Aid. He cleared his throat and took a deep breath. "Your mom… is _my_ mom."

Jamie scoffed and folded his arms across his chest in defiance. "Yeah, right. My mom only ever had one kid, and that's me." He pointed at his chest and glared at the boy across the coffee table. "I'm the only kid she's ever had and the only kid she's ever gonna have. She told me and my mom doesn't lie."

Henry stared at the other boy for a moment in his defiance. Their similarities were too obvious to miss now; Henry pouted his bottom lip when he was annoyed, so did Jamie. Henry pronounced most of his words through his nose, so did Jamie. Henry thought his mother never would have lied to him, so did Jamie.

"How old are you?"

"I'm ten."

"When's your birthday?"

"August 15th, 2001." Jamie shrugged as if he could shrug away the situation. Henry's eyes widened like saucers again. "When's _your_ birthday?"

"August 15th, 2001."

Out of nowhere, Jamie began coughing and spluttering. He whacked his chest as he scurried across the titled floor and away from Henry, his socked feet slipping across the surface in the process. _This wasn't happening. This couldn't be happening_. He shook his head when his back hit the kitchen refrigerator and his hands splayed out across the glossy door.

"You're lying," Jamie all but whispered.

"I'm not. I promise."

Jamie stared at Henry for a moment before he shook his head again. "So what are you saying? What are we – brothers?"

With a nod, Henry stepped closer to Jamie and smiled. "I think so. I think we're twins."

The boy in his pyjamas shook his head and pushed himself off the fridge, muttering ' _impossible_ ' under his breath as he crossed the apartment to the sideboard that his mother had stuffed with most of their belongings when they moved from Chicago. In the few months that they had lived in Boston, nothing in the sideboard had been touched. For some reason, Jamie's mother hated going through the things in there.

He rummaged through one of the drawers, looking for the only bit of proof he had to show the other kid that they definitely _weren't_ brothers. It was impossible and stupid that Henry could even consider the possibility that they were brothers. His Ma told him everything, but she had _never_ told him about a brother! It wasn't something she would ever have kept from him. He found the pale blue photo album he had been searching for at the bottom of the middle drawer and pulled it out to drop it on top of Henry's storybook on the breakfast bar.

"We're not twins." He pointed to the photo album and watched as Henry flipped through the pages and photographs that Emma had put together. "My Ma has only ever had one kid. And that was _me_."

"Then how does my birth certificate say Emma Swan is my mother and we were born on the same day?" Henry challenged as he watched Jamie flick through the pages a few times until he tossed it over to the other boy.

"Maybe you've got the wrong Emma Swan."

Henry simply shook his head as he studied each photograph, soaking up the beauty of the blonde woman in very few of the images. She was beautiful; her blonde, curly hair was always as wild and messy as his own hair; even her crooked smile and gangly limbs were permanent features that Henry seemed to have the same struggle of growing into. Aside from their brown hair and dark eyes, Henry could see how much he and Jamie resembled the woman. Then, he paused on a double page spread of two photographs of a baby swaddled in a navy blue blanket. One of which, was the very same photograph his adopted mother had framed on the desk at her office at the Town Hall. The other picture, however was one he had never actually seen before, and he _definitely_ didn't have a freckle beneath his left eye like that…

"There you go." He pointed at the two photographs in the album. "Two different babies."

Jamie's thick, belly laugh rang through the apartment. "Those are just two different photos, dummy."

"Yeah, of two different babies." Henry leaned close to the other boy and pointed out the tiny difference in the two photographs. One baby had a freckle below his left eye, and the other one didn't. Jamie had a freckle below his left eye, and Henry didn't. "That one is you. And that one is me. They gave the same photo to my mom when she adopted me."

In utter disbelief, finally seeing the smallest difference in the two images, Jamie pulled back the open photo album and held it to his chest. He had a _brother_. It wasn't just him. It had never _just_ been him. He always had someone because he was a twin! He quickly slammed the photo album shut and hurried across the apartment to hide it again, just in case his Ma decided to surprise them and walk straight in.

"We're twins…" Jamie muttered aloud, hoping that by saying it would actually make it easier to believe. It didn't, but it made him feel a _little_ better. "So, I've got a twin brother that my mom never told me about?"

Henry nodded and motioned for Jamie to re-join him at the breakfast bar. He brushed off the invisible dust from the leather bound book as Jamie pulled himself up onto the stool to his right. "So, Emma is _our_ mom. But she's someone really special too."

"Well, duh. She's Boston's superhero." Jamie shrugged, not knowing what Henry was actually referring too. Sure, she was technically a superhero in the eyes of her cliental, but for everyone else in the city, she was nothing more than a nuisance. But Jamie didn't need to know that.

"Where I live, she's supposed to be the Saviour. She's supposed to help save everyone." Henry opened the leather bound book where he had bookmarked it for the occasion with an _Avengers_ bookmark. He pointed to the hand-drawn image of a woman with dark black hair, pale white skin and blood red lips. "This is Snow White…"

* * *

Emma Swan hated leaving her son home alone while she was on a job. After all, he was only ten years old and living in Boston. Crime rates were high, her reputation was filtering through the city pretty damn fast, and it was just a matter of time before trouble showed up on her doorstep again. But this was just a quick smash-and-grab job, she reminded herself multiple times on the short drive across the city from her apartment. It was incredibly rare that she would even work a Friday night, but there she was, cooped up in her beat-up, little yellow bug, racing towards the restaurant that she had agreed to meet her perp for a fake-date, and on her twenty-eighth birthday, too.

She pulled up to the fancy French restaurant named ' _Miller et Laurent_ ' and yanked her ancient car into park against the curb. Like always, she was five minutes late, just so she didn't have to be the one to sit at the table alone like some awkward spinster that hadn't had a date in over three years. She didn't need to leave people guessing whether the former or the latter was true. Only _she_ needed to know that the last person she had dated ran for the hills the moment they spotted the photograph of her and five-year-old Jamie on her cell phone's screen saver.

In her skin-tight red dress and black stilettos, the blonde stepped out of her car and crossed the road with a wide stride, accepting the open door from the grinning doorman. She had met him on few regular occurrences when setting up perps in such a way. She had been one of the lucky ones to actually have approval from the restaurant to work and catch her perps. On countless occasions she had to fit the bill for damages caused, but they would always be gracious enough to cover her from allowing it to hit the local news. They had been courteous enough to constantly welcome her back, and tonight they had reserved her table in a prime spot to not cause too much of a scene. She didn't need that tonight.

The table she had reserved seated a stocky man with the facial structure of a god. His suit was well pressed, even though it was incredibly informal with the top three buttons of his shirt open. From his appearance alone, Emma knew that the man had his hand deep in a very wealthy pocket – ironically enough for him, that pocket was hers.

"Ryan?" Emma asked coyly, quickly falling into the innocent character she relied on to lull her perps into a false sense of security. He grinned at her and quickly stood, holding out his hand to motion for her to take a seat.

"Emma, right?" He remained standing as she took the seat in front of him. As she nodded, she took a quick sip of the water on the table between them, just to wet her thin lips. She knew this was going to be easy from the get-go. From her research, she already knew he was a slime-ball with a reputation to uphold, and just like her, he really wouldn't want this to hit the front page of the Boston Herald tomorrow morning. He smiled at her. "Thank god."

The blonde chuckled. "You looked relieved."

"Well, it is the internet. Pictures can be…"

"Fake. Outdated. Stolen from a Victoria's Secret catalogue…" She suggested with a smile. She was always good at the preamble. She was always successful at lulling her perps into trusting her to actually have a full and relaxed conversation with her. Somehow, she always managed to pull people in and make them interested while on the job, but in her own love life? She was crap at it.

"Exactly." He matched her smiled and shuffled himself into a comfortable position in his chair. "So… um… Tell me something about yourself, Emma."

She ducked her head and tucked a blonde curl behind her ear with a blush, noticing that he seemed to already be hanging onto every word that came out of her mouth. "Oh, well, today's my birthday."

He looked surprised, but the personal information she had handed to him went straight to his ego. "And you're spending it with me! What about your friends?"

"Kind of a loner."

"And you don't like your family?"

"No family to like," She shrugged noncommittally. He didn't need to know about Jamie, but aside from her son, it was technically true. She _didn't_ have any family to like. It was just her and Jamie, and that was just how she liked it.

"Oh, come on. Everyone has family."

"Technically, yeah. But not everyone knows who they are." Her tone was thick. For the type of conversation, her voice shouldn't have enthralled him in the way that it seemed to. She was playing him for every penny he had accepted from her, and Emma Swan was reeling him in. "Ready to run yet?"

"Oh, not a chance. You, Emma, are by far, the sexiest, friendless orphan I have ever met." He winked at her, and Emma could feel his leg reach out to touch her own. A shiver ran up her spine at his forwardness. She hadn't dated a man in a long time, but from what she could remember, they weren't all so forward. Especially not on a first date.

Emma tried to fake a blush as she bit her lip. She smiled and changed the subject, hoping to end it just as fast as it had begun. "Okay. Your turn… No, wait. Let me guess. Um… You are handsome, charming…" She paused for a moment to see him egging her on to continue. She could literally see his ego begin to inflate. It was her perfect opportunity to pounce, and he had opened the door for her to take it. "The kind of guy who – and now, stop me if I get this wrong – embezzled from your employer, got arrested, and skipped town before they were able to throw your ass in jail."

Ryan's jaw dropped and his eyes widened. _Boom_. "What?"

"And the worst part of all is your wife. Your wife loves you so much that she bailed you out, and how do you repay that loyalty? You're on a date." Emma smirked and shook her head at the sleaze ball. When she heard his wife's side of the story, there was nothing more in her job that she would rather do than catch the asshole for her. He had left his wife heartbroken and alone to raise their three kids.

"Who _are_ you?"

"The chick who put up the rest of the money."

"You're a bail bondsman."

"Bail bondsperson," Emma corrected, tilting her head to the side, just before he hurriedly stood and flipped the table to make a run for it. The glasses of wine and water fell from the table, directly into the blonde's lap, stalling her for just a short moment, before she took off in a sprint like an expert in her six-inch-heels. She ducked passed the doorman and followed her _date_ into oncoming traffic. Cabs, cars, and even a few buses swerved out of their way. Traffic around them came to a halt as Emma glided across the lanes and to the side of his _very_ expensive car.

"You don't have to do this, okay? I've got the money. I can pay you." He said in a fluster as he pulled the door shut between them.

The blonde laughed mockingly as she leaned onto the side of his car. "No, you don't. And if you did, you should give it to your wife to take care of your family."

"The hell do you know about family, huh?"

In nothing more than a fit of aggravation, Emma outstretched her arm and threw his head directly into the steering wheel in front of him, successfully knocking him out cold as his head ricocheted off the rubber. Her evening sure as hell was not supposed to have ended like that. It was all in the result of the very same reason her employer told her not to use personal information in her cover story, she always got far too invested when she divulged in such a way. It was unprofessional and anything but kind to herself. Of course, she had Jamie, but other than him, she had nobody. There was no one she could call at night when things weren't right. She didn't even have anyone who was willing to be her emergency contact that _wasn't_ her boss. Everyone around her, aside from Jamie, was an acquaintance that she had no qualms in not knowing.

With a heavy sigh, Emma pulled out her cell phone and hit the speed dial on her employer, requesting back-up to pick up the pieces for her to actually get home and spend the remaining hours of her birthday with her son. She had done all the dirty work and everything she had agreed to offer a hand in, but now it was time for her to go home. Her feet hurt, her head hurt, and the wet patch of wine and water in her lap was beginning to catch the cold breeze of an October Massachusetts night.

Thirty minutes later, found the blonde trudging up the stairs of her building to her apartment. She was already twenty minutes later than she had promised her son, and she knew he would undoubtedly be waiting for her to knock the door to announce her arrival home. She smiled unconsciously at the thought of her innocent little boy. Like any mother, in her eyes, the boy glowed with utter perfection. There wasn't the slightest flaw in his being that she didn't adore. Even from the very moment he was placed in her reluctant arms, covered in blood and residue, Emma knew she would never be able to let him go.

In her attempt to amuse her son, she rang the doorbell to their apartment and waited for him to unlock the yellow door. Through the walls and the gaps around the door, she heard his little footsteps pound on the floor as he sprinted across the apartment to answer the door. In the background, she heard his little voice hushing and shushing whatever it was that seemed to be making a racket inside the apartment. She paid no attention to it, assuming it was probably one of his imaginary friends that he was supposedly deep in conversation with.

Through the door, Emma heard every whisper as he went through his little routine of jumping up to unlock the top bolt, then the second bolt was low enough for him to reach out to, then the third and final lock on the door was pulled to reveal her not-so-little boy with a beaming grin on his face.

"Happy birthday!" He shouted for the second time that evening. Only this time, the anticipated strong arms of his mother wrapped around him as she pulled his slender frame into a tight embrace. Emma lifted her son off his feet and pressed sloppy kisses over his cheeks as she carried him back into the privacy of their apartment. With her heeled foot, she kicked the door shut behind them.

He nuzzled his head into her neck and allowed his legs to dangle and swing as Emma carried him to the breakfast bar. "Thank you, my little prince."

She sat him on the barstool in their kitchenette and ' _wow_ 'ed' in awe of the effort he had made to decorate their home in celebration of her birthday. An uneven, store bought banner hung from the ceiling read ' _Happy Birthday, Mom!_ ', while an abundance of birthday balloons was scattered across the floor, and some were even stuck to the walls with tape. This was the first year that Jamie had ever been able to surprise his mother for her birthday. He had also been the first person to ever willingly celebrate her birthday with her. He even insisted that he bought her a Christmas present (with her own money and under her own supervision), which she feigned forgetting about, just to amuse him.

"Were you okay tonight?" She asked him, ruffling his hair and pinching his adorably chubby cheeks as he squirmed with embarrassment.

He nodded. "Yep. I forgot how to work the DVR again though…" He cringed and shrugged away his embarrassment. "Did you catch your bad-guy?"

"Of course! _Super Swan_ doesn't let them get away." She propped her fists against her hips and stood in her superhero pose with a smirk. It always seemed to make Jamie grin with excitement, even though the poor kid didn't actually know the full extent of her job. For him, being a bail bondsperson was a perfect illusion of a real-life superhero.

"Good!" He beamed and high-fived her, before hopping down from the stool and grabbing her hand. "I have a surprise for you."

Jamie dragged his mother away from the kitchenette, completely forgetting about the scruffily wrapped box on the counter and the cupcake with a crooked blue star candle protruding from the top of it. He pulled her into their living area, shuffling through the endless amount of balloons around their ankles, where he abruptly stopped in front of her. Jamie clapped his hands once, and before Emma could even consider preparing herself to react as surprised as possible for him, a second kid jumped out from behind the couch.

"Surprise!" The second kid bellowed as Emma's eyes widened and her grin fell. Her already pale features turned near enough translucent and her jaw fell open at the sight. Her eyes flickered between her son in front of her, and the other boy standing behind one of the couches in utter confusion and a deep, wrenching pain at the ghost of her past.

"I…" She stuttered. Opening her mouth, Emma tried to verbally comprehend what she was seeing before slamming her mouth shut again. Her stomach twisted and churned with anxiety as she slowly stepped backwards and away from the boys. Seeing her son's twin brother jump out to surprise her on her birthday was _not_ something she had expected this year – or any year, in fact. "I… Uh… Give me a minute."

In haste, Emma scurried out of the adjoining living area and kitchenette toward the bathroom, successfully discarding her heeled shoes on the way. She slammed the door shut behind her as she fell against the wood, trying to compose herself as her mind swam frantically at the thought of her sons finally being together again. Ten years they had been apart; James didn't know he was a twin – nor did she give him reason to believe he was – and now her other son just turned up out of the blue. _How had he found them? How did he even know about them?_ Emma's mind swam dizzyingly at the nauseating thought of how her other son had found any of their information. The records had been sealed straight after the twins had been born. There shouldn't have been a single person, aside from the small, prison issued nursing team that had birthed the boys, who knew; not even the adoptive parents were to have known.

With a huff, and the nagging realisation that this wasn't just going to blow over while she paced through the bathroom, the blonde took a deep breath and opened the door again, only to find Jamie standing outside the door with a guilty look plastered over his face.

"Is he really my twin brother, Ma?" He asked with a timid voice.

Emma looked over his shoulder to see the other boy twirling the ends of his expensive scarf around his fingers as he stood between the couches. She nodded and tilted Jamie's chin towards her. "We need to talk, kid."

She wrapped her arm around Jamie's shoulders and walked with him back to the kitchenette, prompting him and the other boy to hoist themselves onto the stools at the breakfast bar. Jamie happily jumped onto his usual seat at the end of the bar, while Emma watched the other boy with observing eyes as he reluctantly pulled himself onto the next seat. Emma had to stop herself from reaching out to the kid and holding him in the same way she held Jamie. He was beautiful; everything about him made Emma's heart skip a beat and her stomach flip. From his little freckles on his cheeks and chicken-pox scar on his chin, he was entirely his own person while being almost identical to Jamie. She had always regret holding onto only one of her boys, and now, as they sat together all grown-up, the blonde felt nauseous.

"What's your name, kid?" She asked the nervous looking ten-year-old when he settled in the seat.

Through his thick and wild bangs, he looked up at her with huge, brown eyes – the very same eyes that Jamie used when he was terrified. He spoke with a whisper. "Henry Daniel Mills."

"And do your parents know you're here?"

"It's just my mom." He spoke a little louder this time and raised his chin when Emma didn't raise her voice at him. She only leaned onto the counter and watched his every move, every facial expression and every thought about saying something more. "But she thought I went to school today."

Emma's eyes widened at the thought of herself at ten years old. She could barely tie her own shoelaces herself at that age, let alone travel across country to find someone she didn't even know existed. Yet, Henry Mills – her _son_ – was sat at her breakfast bar with his _twin brother_ expecting her to do something about their relation. She rubbed her eyes in disbelief and held onto her jaw as she thought of how to deal with the situation. She couldn't keep Henry with her. Without a doubt, there would be a country wide search party for a kid that looked as wealthy as he did within the next twenty-four hours, and if she was found with the kid she had put up for adoption ten years ago, she would lose both of them for good. She shook the idea out of her head and moved her hands to steeple beneath her chin.

"How did you find us, kid?" She asked with a raised eyebrow. His mother _definitely_ shouldn't have known about Emma _or_ her other son, never mind where to find them too.

Behind a playful little grin, Emma could see the boy slowly come out of his shell as he sat up a little in his seat. "Somewhere on the internet. My mom doesn't know I found you either…"

"Kid…" She sighed and looked over at Jamie, who was patiently waiting for an explanation on the matter. She had never expected to ever have the conversation with him. She thought about her first born a lot. She had wondered what he was like; she wondered what his name was, whether he liked video games or books, whether he liked school, whether he had any siblings… She had spent hours, and even days, wondering and imagining who her son had become. As she watched Jamie grow and grow into an intelligent and outdoorsy young man, she couldn't help but think about how different his life would have been if she had kept his twin brother in their lives. She couldn't help but think about how different his life would have been if he had been put up for adoption with his brother. There were too many what-if's and a wonders about the way her and her sons lives would have been had certain things happened differently.

Henry looked down at the expensive looking watch on his little wrist and tapped the glass face. "We should probably get going."

"Going where?" Emma asked with raised eyebrows.

"I need you and Jamie to come home with me." He looked over at his twin brother. They shared a menacing grin that made Emma's stomach flip. They were already so connected in ways she had never even dreamed of witnessing. It was troubling to say the very least.

 _'God, this is a mess.'_ She thought to herself, before speaking aloud and scoffing. "Where's home?"

"Storybrooke, Maine."

Emma and Jamie's jaws dropped simultaneously, only Emma's was a confused expression, while Jamie's seemed far more excited.

"Storybrooke? That's so cool! It's like the story-" Henry's hand slapped against Jamie's mouth to stop him from saying any more. Their birth mother did _not_ need to know about the storybook just yet.

"Like what story?" Emma asked, trying to ignore how bizarre her birthday had already been, prior to her son showing up. She didn't need to feel the excitement and adoration she had in the pit of her stomach as she watched her boys interact. It was also the first time she had physically set eyes on Henry. When he was born, she couldn't even bring herself to look up from her pillow, then when the nurses announced that she could hold him while they waited on the other baby to move into position, she couldn't even bring herself to open her eyes. She didn't need to see her first born, and at the time, she hadn't even wanted to see her second child, either.

"I don't think you're ready for that yet." Henry told her as he finally let go of Jamie's mouth. He grinned at his brother and jumped down from the stool. "It's a long drive, you know."

"Woah, kid. I never said I was going to take you back to _Maine_." Emma muttered in a hurry. "How did you even get here?"

"You've heard of Greyhound, right? I took the last bus between Storybrooke and Augusta for the weekend. Oh, and the ticket for the buses from Boston to Augusta are sold out until next Thursday."

"You really thought all of this through, huh?" Henry nodded and threw his backpack over his shoulders. Emma groaned. "Then let's get you back to Storybrooke."


	2. Chapter Two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry for the delay on this! I'm going to try to get chapters out much sooner than this one was out. 
> 
> Enjoy!

Emma peeled off her impossibly tight and stained red dress, hating the clammy feeling the wine and water had created against her skin and tossed it into the hamper at the bottom of her bed. Finding the old faithful pair of skinny jeans she had abandoned half on her night-stand and half on the floor before her ' _date_ ', she shimmied herself into the even tighter denim and tugged a white tank-top over her head. She threw on a grey henley over the top, swung her red leather jacket over her shoulders and yanked her worker boots onto her feet before trudging out of her bedroom and back into the living area of her apartment.

Jamie and Henry had moved from the breakfast bar to one of the apartment's white couches, where they were sat side by side, skimming through the big leather book that Henry seemed to like to keep close to his being at all times. For a moment, where she remained hidden from view in the corner of the kitchenette, she watched them interact and whisper between one another as they flicked through the pages of fairy tales. Jamie would point at an illustration and Henry would divulge in information that anyone could have sworn was top secret.

A ghost of a smile graced Emma's lips at their natural connection. It was a sight she had thought up in her wildest dreams as she imagined how her boys would undoubtedly team up against her to get their own ways; how they would always have a best friend in the other; how no matter what, nothing or no one would ever come between them. Those dreams always ended in floods of tears. They always made her stomach knot and ache in worry that her first born had been thrown around in the system, or worse, ended up on the street, just like she had in both cases. She had no idea where he was going when he left her private hospital room in the medical facilities of the Arizona prison, and she still had no idea what his life had been like. For all she knew, he could have had the worst upbringing imaginable, even under his expensive clothes and perfected manners there could have been a horror story that she never would have wanted for either of her sons. But there was still a glistening light in his eyes that argued otherwise.

Emma shook her head and forced the guilty stream of worry that niggled away at the back of her mind further into her sub-conscience. She had no intention of worrying about her other son. He wasn't her son to worry about, anyway.

She clapped her hands together once to bring the boys (and herself) out of their own little worlds.

“Okay, let’s go,” She finally said, stepping out of the corner and pulling out a few bottles of water from the refrigerator and several packs of chips for the journey. She knew it wouldn’t be enough for their seven hour round trip, especially since she knew how Jamie’s appetite only seemed to be growing with the older he got. She glanced at the boys momentarily, wondering if Henry was just as bad as her and his twin brother when it came to their insatiable appetites.

_'He's not yours to worry about,'_ Emma internally reminded herself for the umpteenth time as she watched Henry stuff the big book into his backpack and Jamie as he skid across the apartment in his socks to find himself a fresh set of clothes for the journey. She busied herself by stacking Jamie's dishes in the dishwasher while she waited and tried her damned hardest not to cross the apartment and hold her first born tightly in her arms; not to smell the top of his head like she found herself doing on a regular basis to Jamie. Somewhere, in the back of her mind, the blonde single-mother knew that if she even looked at the ten year old long enough, she would never want to let him go.

And then where would she be?

Prison. _Again_.

And this time, she would be without both of her boys and a restraining order to boot.

"Hey, ma? Ma!" Emma blinked for a second and shook her head, to see Jamie standing in front of her dressed in his favourite pair of jeans and a winter coat that still looked too big for him. He tried, and failed, to snap his fingers in front of her face. "Ma, you've been staring like that for ages."

She smiled guiltily. "Sorry, kiddo." Emma tugged on the front of Jamie's coat and readjusted the way it sat on his shoulders before she tilted his chin up with her index finger. "Can I talk to you for a minute?"

Jamie nodded and followed his mother into the apartment's only bathroom. It was already cramped with only one person in it, but with the two of them _and_ Jamie's oversized Parker, it felt impossibly small. He pulled his arms up into his jacket, allowing the sleeves to swallow his limbs whole. The cuffs swung at his sides as he chewed his bottom lip and passed his weight between both feet.

"Am I in trouble for letting Henry in?" He asked when the door clicked shut.

"Absolutely not." Emma smiled down at her son and held his cheeks between the palms of her hands. "I'm sorry I never told you about him... I never thought I would have to tell you; I never thought we would ever see your brother again and seeing him - seeing the both of you together - it spooked me more than I thought it ever would."

"Why did you think we would never see him again?" Innocently, Jamie tilted his head to the side in question and watched patiently as his mother leaned against the glass shower screen.

She sighed. "Because Henry went with his mom, and you stayed with me."

Jamie nodded and patiently watched her every move. She knew he was already psychoanalysing her and no doubt attempting to plan something she really didn't want anything to do with. He was good at that - planning things to create a solution that no one else could figure out. Jamie was an intelligent boy, but more often than not, it scared Emma senseless that he was already so much like her. Well, aside from his behaviour, anyway. Unbelievably, Emma Swan had produced the most well behaved child anyone could ask for. Sure, he was mischievous in all the worst possible ways (like any child his age), but he always knew when to stop and think about someone else.

Even from his silent and watchful gaze, Emma knew how he wanted to know more about how he and his estranged twin came to be, but there was something else beneath it all that had Emma feeling nervous.

"Are you mad at me?" She finally asked.

Jaime frowned and looked at his floppy sleeves, then at his mother. "Why would I be mad at you?"

"Because I didn't tell you about your bother? Or because I only kept one of you?" She shrugged and kicked her worker boots against the tile flooring. "I don't know, kid. There's probably loads of reasons why you should be upset with me."

"I'm not mad or upset." He told her honestly and wrapped his arms around her waist. His little head pressed into her abdomen as he held her tightly. His voice was muffled against her body when he spoke again. "But maybe you could tell me everything one day? You never talk about my dad, and now Henry's here... I just wanna know."

Emma paused for a moment and looked down at the kid holding her. She smiled and ran her fingers through his dark hair. He was far too mature for his age, and apparently knew how to get everything he wanted from her with nothing more than a hug and a look. "How about we get cocoa at Joe's tomorrow after we've taken Henry home to his mom and I'll tell you all about it?"

Jamie seemed to think about it for a moment as he looked up at his blonde mother. He chewed on his bottom lip in contemplation. "Are you sure we can't stay in Storybrooke with Henry for a few days? Shouldn't he know about all this stuff too?"

“He’s technically not my kid, Jai. If the cops knew he was wandering around my apartment after he’s been AWOL all day, they would instantly know I was his birth mother after seeing you and accuse me for trying to kidnap him.” She smoothed Jamie’s bangs across his forehead and used the palm of her hand to cup his chubby cheek. “If that happened, I’d lose you. I’d lose both of you and I would never be able to live with myself if that happened.”

From the heavy look of sorrow on his mother’s face he knew she was right. There was no way she would ever do anything that could put either of them in danger of losing each other. He could even remember their time in Tallahassee, when he was no older than four, and the social workers tried taking him from her because she technically didn’t have a ‘ _real_ ’ job, nor did they have a home to call their own. They were bouncing between hotel rooms, motel rooms, and even the backseat of her car. It was no place for a toddler to be raised, but even now Jamie knew his mother had no choice. She did what was best for them, and in the long run, it worked.

But this time, there was something niggling in the back of Jamie’s mind that maybe, just maybe, leaving Henry in Storybrooke alone wasn’t what was best for any of them.

“What about Ohana?” He asked.

“What about it?”

“Ohana means family-“

“ _And family means nobody gets left behind, or forgotten_.” Emma finished for him, reciting the Disney movie they had watched hundreds of times together. It had quickly become one of Emma’s all-time favourite Disney movies – the others were all a little too… _unrelatable_. “I know, kid. I just don’t think Ohana would stand in court, do you?”

Jamie grinned and finally let go of the vice-like grip he had around his mom’s waist. “It might.”

Before she could provide her son with a counterargument about how quoting Disney movies in court would never return her rights to Henry, the boy in question bellowed through the door.

"Have you guys got any juice?" There was a pause as Emma looked at Jamie with a raised eyebrow. He grinned at her. "Never mind, found some!"

*#*#*#*

The drive from Boston to Storybrooke was tedious to say the very least. At least, it was for Emma, anyway. Henry and Jamie would more than likely have argued otherwise since they spent the entire trip whispering and giggling between each other as they continued to flick through Henry's book of fairytales. It wasn't until they crossed the Maine state line that Emma finally spoke up.

"So, what's with the book?" She asked, glancing up at the ten-year-olds in the backseat from her rear-view mirror.

"It's not just a book," Henry started. He looked at Jamie, who nodded at him with an encouraging smile. It was a menacing look and Emma didn't like it in the slightest. "I don't think you're ready yet, but Jamie does."

The blonde scoffed. "Ready for some fairytales?"

Henry slammed the book shut and practically glared at Jamie. "They're not just fairytales. They're real."

The pressed ' _hm_ ' that came from her lips was enough for Henry to raise an eyebrow at Jamie in saying _'I told you so'_. She shot Jamie a concerned look, but his head had dropped back into the book when Henry opened it.

After a few minutes with nothing but the vintage yellow Volkswagen rattling in their ears, Henry finally spoke up again.

"Every story in this book is real. All the characters are real people and they all live in Storybrooke." He flicked through a few of the pages and pointed at an illustration for Jamie to create a visual of what Henry was explaining for the second time. "The Evil Queen cast a curse and sent everyone here to destroy their happy endings."

Emma raised an eyebrow as she glanced up at the boys through the mirror again. "Convenient. I'll play." She smirked to herself, thanking her lucky stars that the only fairytales Jamie believed in were the Harry Potter books. And even then, she hated how he constantly checked through every piece of their mail to see if his Hogwarts acceptance letter had arrived. "So, Storybrooke, which sounds an awful lot like 'storybook', is a town filled with fairytale characters?"

"I told you she'd get it," Jamie whispered from the back seat, naive enough to believe his mother couldn't hear him over the rumbling engine of her car.

Henry ignored Jamie as his voice fell into a pleading sound. "They don't know who they are. The curse made them forget everything about themselves, but when the curse is broken by the Saviour, they'll wake up and remember who they are again!"

"Hm, that sounds a little far fetched to me,"

"It's not. It's real," Henry insisted and Emma had to force herself not to roll her eyes at him. "My mom is the Evil Queen and she doesn't think I know, but I do. I know all about her story and how evil she really is."

Emma tutted under her breath and risked a glance at Jamie, who was still completely enthralled by the book. His eyes widened as he turned the pages, reading through the tales of true love and wicked step-mothers. He was always a sucker for a good story, but the classic fairytales that everyone knew weren’t every his type of go-to bed time story.

For the rest of the journey, Emma found herself trying to hum along to the random radio stations that she flicked through in an attempt to defer her mind away from whatever mischief was happening in the backseat of her Bug. But every time one of the twins laughed or whispered loud enough for her to hear, hey green eyes would wander up to the rear-view mirror to see her sons with their heads pressed together over the book. The sight made her stomach knot and her heart ache every time she laid her eyes on them, knowing that she would never truly be able to forgive herself for giving Henry up and never mentioning him to Jamie once in his ten years.

Everything they did seemed to spark up her own little pity-party in the driver’s seat as she wondered how different all of their lives could have turned out had she made even the slightest change in her decision. Would she ever have been so successful in her field had she kept both of the twins? Would she have ever gone into bounty-hunting had she left prison alone? Would she have even ended up back in prison at some point? They were all questions she knew would never be answered in a million years, but her exhausted mind taunted her with a few twisted, and even a few desirable scenarios revolving around how her life could have turned out.

Each time she thought she had shaken off one thought, another came barrelling through and occasionally took her breath from her lungs. It was disorientating and by the time her little yellow Bug rolled over the Storybrooke town line, a wave of relief engulfed her and swallowed her whole.

It took a few impatient attempts, but when Emma finally got Henry's address out of him, she sped through the deserted streets of Storybrooke until she found Mifflin street. The only house on the street with all the lights on just so happened to be the biggest house on the street. Emma gulped in trepidation.

"Is this your house, kid?" She asked over her shoulder.

Henry nodded. "It's the mayor's house. But yeah, I live there."

"You're the mayor's kid?!"

"Yeah, she's been the mayor as long as anyone can remember," Henry defiantly folded his arms across his chest when Emma pulled the car into park along the kerb side. "Please don't make me go in there! She's evil and she doesn't love me."

"I'm sure she does love you, kid. If she didn't the lights would be out, your mom would be asleep and the sheriff's cruiser wouldn't be parked outside." Emma bit back as she opened the driver's side door. She couldn't be having this argument with a kid that never belonged to her. She wasn't even sure if her name was on his birth certificate, never mind on any other legal document that said he had anything to do with her. She had her kid and she was already doing the best she could for him. There was _nothing_ she could do to help out the kid that shared the womb with her son.

Emma pulled her seat forward for the boys to clamber out after their little indiscreet whisper to each other behind their cupped hands. She tried to ignore it. She tried to pretend that she hadn't seen it, but their giggles and nods of excitement were difficult not to ignore. Especially when her stomach knotted, her heart skipped and her eyes clouded with tears. Biting back her emotions and attempting to school her features in every way she knew possible, Emma clapped her hand down onto Jamie's shoulder and lead him to follow Henry, who reluctantly strolled up the garden path.

It took a lot for Emma not to match Jamie's gasp when the house came into full view. It was huge, elegant, and everything she ever dreamed of having for her and Jamie. The house looked like something straight out of _Good House Keeping_ magazine, and Emma hadn't even stepped into the place before feeling out of place. _This_ was exactly what she wanted for her sons when she wanted them to have their best chances in life; not the backseat of her bug, or the occasional motel in the middle of nowhere, or even a tiny apartment in a Boston tower block.

"Are you sure I have to go back in there?" He asked over his shoulder with the same pleading look that Jamie used on her far too often than she ever should have allowed.

Before Emma could reply, however, the huge white front door bearing the golden numbers of ' _108_ ' flew open to reveal a panic stricken woman wearing a figure hugging grey dress. From that moment on, Emma could have sworn that time stood still. Every second that passed felt like nothing as she drank up the incredible vision in front of her. She mentally mapped out every part of the woman who had come running out of the house and engulfing Henry into her arms like he had been gone for far longer than twelve-hours, from the faint scar over her top lip to the ring that hung from her necklace, even to the expensive and expertly selected pair of court heels that helped the woman live up to her mayoral status.

Emma didn't even see the man that followed the mayor out of her home until the woman began talking to her son.

"Henry," She breathed into his hair as she held him close to her chest. He resisted, but she still kept a hold of the side of his arms as she leaned down time his height to check him over. "Are you okay? Where have you been? What happened?"

"I found my _real_ mom!" Henry snarled at her as he turned out of his mother's grasp to grip onto Jamie's wrist. He tugged him away from their birth mother and dragged him towards the house - not after calling over his shoulder. "I found my twin brother too!"

The mayor straightened slightly from her slouch where she had been speaking to her son and looked up at the orientated blonde staring back at her with as much confusion in her green eyes as the Mayor knew she had in her own.

"You're- you’re Henry's birth mother?" She finally asked with as much emotion in her voice as what flowed through her veins.

"Hi," Emma replied almost instantly, internally chastising herself for being such a fool to be so incapable of saying anything more. She smiled though, and held the mayor's heavy gaze, still unable to tear her eyes away from the sight before her.

The tall, dark haired Sheriff behind the Mayor cleared his throat, reminding the two complete strangers who couldn't seem to stop staring at one another that he was still there and very much confused about the situation he found himself in.

"Madam Mayor?" He asked in a tentative voice through his thick British accent.

"That will be all, thank you, Sheriff," The Mayor said dismissively without looking away from the woman standing on her garden path with her hands dug deep in her skin-tight denim jeans. She swallowed thickly as she tried to regain any sort of control over the situation and painfully smiled at the woman before her. "How would you like a glass of the best apple cider you ever tasted?"

With an awkward grin of her own, Emma nodded. "Got anything stronger?"

*#*#*#*

"Woah, this place is huge!" Jamie exclaimed as he stumbled into the mansion behind Henry. The other boy had his hand wrapped tightly around Jamie's wrist, pulling him through the foyer of the home and up the elegant winding staircase. “You actually live here?!”

“Yes, now come on before they see us!” Henry hissed, still tugging on Jamie's wrist as they crossed the hall. He pushed Jamie into the first bedroom on the left and slammed the door shut behind them. “This is my room. Well, _your_ room until we decide if it's time to change back.”

Jamie nodded and wandered further into the room, taking in every sight before him. The royal blue walls with matching curtains and bedspread were the first things to catch his eye. It was a basic necessity that Jamie, nor his mom, ever had. They never stayed anywhere long enough to make themselves at home. Everything was white in their apartment in Boston because, as Emma had told him when he all but demanded they buy blue pillow cases one morning, it was easier for them to keep and reuse when they needed to move again. It never really made much sense to him until he walked into Henry's room to see how homey it was. They could never make any one or two bedroom apartments feel this cozy.

His eyes wandered over to the solar system mobile that hung from the corner of Henry's room. It didn't hang above his bed like normal mobiles. Instead it hung just off the window and caught every glimmer of light in the darkening night, reflecting it across the room. It was mesmerising as it twirled without prompting.

“Tell me again what we're doing,” Jamie’s eyes still scanned and trawled through the endless toys, books, comics and games that cluttered the room.

“You're gonna change into my clothes, and I'm going to change into your clothes for when Emma says we're leaving.” Jamie nodded. “Then you're going to stay here with my mom, and I'm going to go with your mom and convince her to stay in town for the weekend. That way, we can still see each other and Emma can see that my mom really is evil!”

The boy who had been wearing his pyjamas only a few hours before stopped for a moment to look himself up and down in the floor length mirror that stood just outside of Henry's closet. In comparison to the expensive looking clothes Henry was wearing, Jamie knew that his life was nowhere near as lavish as his twin brother's. Sure, his mother gave him everything she could afford (and _damn_ did she go all out whenever she could), but he never had nearly half as much as Henry had. For him, this wasn't really much of a choice. If he could take the opportunity to live the life of a rich kid, even for a weekend, there would be no force strong enough to make him say no. Not even the prospect of living with the Evil Queen could deter him.

"Okay, let's do this,"

*#*#*#*

Emma followed the Mayor in through the front door and up the small flight of stairs into the mansion's foyer. As difficult as it was, she restrained herself from making ridiculous comments about the sheer size of the house for just a woman and her son. The foyer itself was bigger than the apartment Emma and Jamie shared in Boston alone. She bit her tongue and lingered in the doorway of the dining room as the Mayor excused herself to retrieve some glasses from the kitchen. When she returned, Emma stuck her hands into the back pockets of her jeans and swayed between the balls of her feet to her heels.

"How did he find me?"

"No idea," The Mayor started with an elegant shrug as she dropped several ice cubes into each of the tumbler glasses cradled expertly in the palm of her hand. "When I adopted him, he was only three weeks old. Records were sealed, I was told the birth mother didn't want any contact."

"You were told right,"

"And the other..." Taking a brief pause, the Mayor poured generous servings of her homemade apple cider from the decanter into the tumblers and handed one over to Emma. "Is he really Henry's twin?"

Emma simply nodded and accepted the drink. She caught the other woman's questioning gaze, blatantly ignoring at tugging feeling in the pit of her stomach, and the flicker of emotion that swam deeply through chocolate eyes. The sight itself made Emma gulp.

"And the father?"

"There was one."

"Do I need to be worried about him?" The Mayor worried her bottom lip briefly, as she tried to hide it behind her glass.

"Nope. Doesn't even know about either of them."

"Do I need to be worried about you, Miss Swan?"

Emma's eyes widened slightly. This was exactly what she had worried about. She wasn't a home wrecker, nor was she someone who ignored the rules of the law. At least, she wasn't any more. She shook her head, meaning every word that came from her mouth. "Absolutely not,"

The Mayor nodded lightly and tilted her head towards a room in the opposite corned of the foyer. She glided past Emma, from where the blonde stood leaning against the doorframe like she was holding up the entire wall with her back.

Like the foyer and the dining room, Emma could see that the small library-like room was just as lavish as the rest of the house. The expensive mahogany fireplace and bookcases that lined the walls screamed wealth. It also gave Emma even more of an inclination as to the woman's sense of style - expensive and just as elegant as she expressed herself. Emma was more than impressed.

This was exactly the life she wanted for her boys to have in their upbringing, not the type of shady foster homes that would use them for food stamps. She wanted her twins to have a life where they would never have to worry whether or not they would be fed that night. She wanted them to have the upbringing she was so unfortunate not to ever even have a glimpse of. And in some sheer stroke of luck, that was exactly what Henry had.

She ignored the guilt that bubbled in the bottom of her stomach at the thought of what Jamie could have had, had she given him up too. They both could have had this. They could have had everything their little minds could ever want, and Emma, being Emma, was selfish the moment she laid eyes on Jamie and decided that he would be hers and no one else's for the rest of their lives.

As Emma took a seat in one of the two facing love seats at the centre of the room, divided by a mahogany coffee table that matched the bookcases and fireplace, the brunette Mayor wandered towards the fireplace and readjusted the mantle clock that had somehow become slightly askew. Emma, however, couldn't draw her eyes away from the bowl of red apples in the middle of the coffee table. ' _So_ that _was why Henry thought she was the Evil Queen. The apples thing._ ' She thought to herself with a snicker.

"I'm sorry he dragged you out of your lives. I really don't know what's gotten into him."

"Kid's having a rough time. Happens." It _did_ happen, and Emma knew all too much about situations like that. She nodded and watched as the Mayor left her stance at the fireplace to take her own seat in the opposite love seat.

"You have to understand," She began, placing her glass onto the table to free up her hands enough to flick away any invisible lint or dust that might have collected on her lap at some point. "Ever since I became mayor, balancing things has been tricky. You have a job, I assume?"

Emma almost winced at the words. Raising a growing ten-year-old boy wasn't cheap, and apparently the Mayor knew that all too well. Of course Emma had a job. She took a deep breath, forcing down the desire to roll her eyes and nodded again. "Uh, I keep busy. Yeah."

"Then you don't have to imagine how trying it is to be a working single mom. With Henry I push forward. Am I strict? I suppose. But I do it for his own good. I want Henry to excel in life." Mayor Mills paused for a moment and tilted her head with a sad smile, almost as if she were trying to justify her actions towards her son. It didn't take a genius to see that the woman in front of the bounty hunter was hurt. "I don't think that makes me evil, do you?"

_There it was_. Back to the ' _evil_ ' thing again. Emma had heard the word so much over the last couple of hours, she was beginning to question the actual existence of the word. It was starting to sound like a foreign word in her ears and it only made her squint. It wasn't every day that the word was thrown around when describing someone. It certainly wasn't a word Emma would have used to describe the beautiful, yet seemingly insecure woman before her.

"I'm sure he's just saying that because of the fairytale thing." She offered, trying to break the tension enough to get at least a smile from the woman in front of her. When nothing came, she took a heavy swig of her drink.

"What fairytale thing?"

"Oh, you know, Henry's book." Emma tried again. _Nothing_. "How he thinks everyone in this town is a cartoon character from it."

The Mayor creased her eyebrow as she surveyed the blonde stranger. Her chocolatey eyes continued to swim with confusion, relief, devastation, and maybe a little bit of something else that Emma couldn't quite put her finger on. "I'm sorry, I really have no idea what you're talking about."

"You know what, it's none of my business. He's your kid - I have mine. And we really should be heading back."

The second Emma put the glass to her lips again, the Mayor stood up with a square, politician-style nod. She brushed the front of her skirt down with the side of her hand as Emma threw back the last dregs of her cider, not wanting to comment on how good the damn drink was and how much she wanted more before she left.

"Of course."

Emma followed Mayor Mills out of the small library room closely on her heels. Her hands were tightly stuffed in the back pockets of her skinny jeans once again, feeling too anxious in the presence of the sophisticated mayor to do anything else with them. They were back in the foyer once again when the Mayor called up to the second floor.

"Henry, -" She paused briefly in silent question to the blonde who was swaying at her side.

"James. _Jamie_."

The Mayor smiled tightly before calling up the stairs again. "Henry. James. Could you come down, please?"

The two women didn't have to wait long when they heard the sound of something drop onto the ground on the second floor. They glanced a knowing look between them, each woman knowing how their sons had a knack for causing mischief.

"I never got your name," Emma pointed out to break the silence between them as they heard Henry and Jamie shuffling around upstairs. She could have said anything, _Hell_ , she could have just stood there in silence and waited for Jamie to come downstairs without making any type of conversation with a woman she knew she would probably never see again in her life. Yet there was something about the brunette that called to her. There was something that made Emma want to know her, and Emma was completely oblivious to the reason why.

The Mayor paused before offering out her hand to shake. Emma took it with a smile as she said: "Mayor Regina Mills."

*#*#*#*

"So, how do I look?" Jamie asked as he pulled the sweater down at the hem. He felt uncomfortable. Awkward and uncomfortable, but his reflection in the mirror was startlingly different to the way he felt. He looked smart. He looked like someone else entirely. He looked like _Henry_.

"You look like me! How do _I_ look?"

Jamie laughed and high-fived the other boy. "Just like me."

The two boys eyed each other over, checking that every last detail about them matched who they were supposed to be. Henry even drew on a little freckle beneath his left eye with a marker pen to match Jamie's. Jamie had tried to cover his with some of the make-up Henry had stolen from his mother's bathroom, but the black dot was far too dark for it to be covered with a little foundation. It would just be for the weekend, he justified to himself, hoping that Henry's mom wouldn't notice the little blemish on his face. But even he knew that he Mayor discovering his blemish would be the least of his problems.

" _Henry. James. Could you come down please?_ " Both boys heard the Mayor's voice travel up to the second floor.

At that moment, Jamie's stomach flipped. Not that he would ever admit it, but for the first time in his life he was truly terrified. What if his Ma took Henry home to Boston and completely forgot to come back for him? What if the Mayor really was the Evil Queen and Jamie was stuck with her forever? What if their plan completely failed and backfired on all of them? Jamie swallowed the lump in his throat, hoping it would do something to dampen the fear that rose in his belly. It did little but remind him of the things he would be getting out of the situation, like a brother and a mansion to call home for the next couple of days.

He rubbed his hands against the legs of Henry's jeans and stared at the other boy.

"You think they'll believe this?" He asked.

"They have to." Henry reluctantly handed Henry his book of fairytales as zipped up the oversized Parker that Jamie had arrived in. "Don't forget - she has to believe you've lived here your entire life."

"And _you_ have to make Ma stay here for the weekend." Jamie paused for Henry to nod slightly before spinning on his heel and walking straight out of the room. Leading his way through someone else's home was disorientating enough, but leading his way through someone else's home while pretending to be someone else was just down right confusing.

The two boys took to the staircase together, both seeing their mothers waiting for them at the bottom. Jamie watched his feet as they took each step instead of looking at his birth mother and the woman he was supposed to be calling ' _mom_ ' for the next few days. Unlike Henry, he would probably be the one on the receiving end of a few disapproving words when Henry and his Ma walked out through the door. He never did take well to being chastised by his own mother, never mind someone else's mother.

When they reached the bottom of the staircase, Henry stood beside Emma, who quickly wrapped her arm around his shoulders and pulled him close to her, while Jamie cringed and nervously stepped beside the Mayor, who rested a gentle hand on his shoulder, surprisingly enough, relaxing him at first contact.

"Thank you for bringing my son home to me, Miss Swan," Regina said in her most powerful mayoral tone as she gave Jamie's shoulder a squeeze. He looked up at his birth mother and blushed under her gaze.

Emma nodded. "Of course."

*#*#*#*

After the briefest round of goodbyes, Emma bit her tongue and turned her back on the son she had never been able to call her own. Tears were already welling up in the corner of her eyes, but when Jamie took her hand in his own as they walked down the path, she cleared her throat and mentally rebuilt every wall she had ever hid behind. She still had her son. She had no right to Henry, and yet she still felt like she was leaving her family behind.

At the end of the Mayor's garden path, Emma refused to look back at the house. She was terrified that one glance at the house and seeing her son looking back at her with his wide eyes, begging her to take him with them, that she would sprint back up the path and take him under her wing back to Boston. She had seen the fear in Regina's eyes when she spotted him walking towards her when they arrived - there was no way she could ever willingly cause that much fear and heartbreak in someone else for her own selfish want. She couldn't do that to Regina - not the woman who looked longingly at Henry, in the same way Emma did. She would never be able to inflict that much pain in the eyes of a woman that made Emma's heart miss a beat. She internally scolded herself for having such thoughts as she opened the front gate of her other son's mother's home.

With a heavy sigh, she opened the passenger side door to her car and ushered Jamie inside before shutting the door behind him.

It wasn't until she took her own seat behind the wheel did she risk a glance back up at the house. The porch was empty and the light had already gone out.

"Hey mom- I mean, _Ma_ ," Henry tried as he buckled himself into the seat, trying to act as natural as possible.

Emma hummed and blinked out of her endless stream of thoughts. "Yeah, kid?"

"Do you think we could stay in Storybrooke tonight? Henry told me that there was a B&B somewhere on Main Street that we could stay at..."

"Did he now? And did he also suggest that we buy a house here too?" She raised an eyebrow at her son, completely oblivious to which son it actually was sitting shot-gun with her.

"It wouldn't be a bad thing if he did, right?"

"We're not staying in Storybrooke, Jai."

Henry pouted a little. He had already seen Jamie do the same thing he had done on countless occasions with his mom, and with Emma, it seemed to work every time. "Please? Just for the weekend?"

Emma had already set the car in drive when Jamie's bottom lip stuck out even further. She hated how good he was at persuading her to do anything he wanted from her. And this time, like any other, his pout and puppy dog smile made her cave almost immediately. It didn't help the fact that her mind hadn't left Henry and Regina. Well, seeing Henry and Jamie together again, but her mind still wandered to seeing Regina again. She tutted at herself and gave the lamest excuse she could think of.

"We haven't got anything packed. We're not staying."

"Ma, you know that's a lie. We've _always_ got clothes in the trunk," Henry tried again, remembering that Jamie told him about how Emma was obsessed with ensuring they were prepared for _anything_ , including the single most last minute move possible. The Bug was always already half packed. " _Please_. It's your birthday."

The blonde rolled her eyes and pressed her foot on the accelerator, pulling away from the curb.

"So where did Henry say this B&B was?" 


End file.
